


something good can work

by shier



Category: iKON (Kpop)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 03:05:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6406183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shier/pseuds/shier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>junhwe's pretty sure that senior bobby is going to beat him up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	something good can work

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to write something for junhwe's birthday but all i have is this thing salvaged a conversation i had rip
> 
> warnings: largely unedited, toothache inducing fluff presented in complete lapslock with no flow whatsoever. brought to you from a tiny box on whatsapp!!!!

 

 

i.

junhwe's pretty sure that senior bobby is going to beat him up. for one, junhwe'd just carded him last week when he'd been sprinting in the middle of the corridor on a school day. strike one: not walking in an orderly fashion as was prescribed by their teachers. strike two: dressing like he just picked up his uniform from a trashcan outside their school. strike three: asking junhwe if he was free for lunch to bribe him out of giving him a card.  
  
and now junhwe's going to be punched in the face. and junhwe's tall, but he doesn't have a single ounce of muscle on him. unless you counted his tongue, but it's not like he can enter an eating competition with that senior bobby.  
  
"just talk to him," donghyuk, of the 'we-can-resolve-this-with-feelings' type person, advices him, and junhwe nearly beats _him_  up instead. this isn't good. what's even worse is that it continues. they'd make eye contact over the lunch rush, or over assembly, or junhwe would catch bobby's friends snickering just as junhwe walks past. he tells himself he's being sensitive—what the hell does a senior who's more interested in playing ball and skipping class want with junhwe? detention must be bobby's second home, by now, and it's not like it's junhwe's fault that bobby's allergic to the school rules.  
  
but the next time junhwe sees bobby sauntering in late (and at an extraordinarily slow pace, too) he hesitates. probably flushes an embarrassing colour as he reluctantly fills out the little late slip and tears it off, folding it as though that would absolve him from getting his teeth knocked out. he's seen bobby the senior play ball, and he's seen those muscles that could wedge three other equally beef-headed seniors away, not to mention _junhwe_  whose only form of exercise was walking to school.  
  
he ends up smacking the pink slip against bobby's chest and striding away like he had somewhere else to be, and not at all like he's going to have to make a u-turn the second he hits the end of the hallway. but he does, and when he walks past bobby again, he swears he's not imagining the look of disappointment on bobby's face.  
  
the next time they meet again is a week later, after school. junhwe's trying to mash the side of his papier mache project into one piece, instead of several pieces that looked more like used tissues than anything else, when he hears a rough voice ask, "need any help?" he whips around, crushing one paper mache in his hand and crumbling that into tragic pieces.  
  
it's that senior bobby, alone, with his hands shoved deep into his pocket. he could be hiding any sort of weapon. junhwe should probably start screaming now.  
  
"no," junhwe says determinedly. look him in the eye, he tells himself, it's what national geographic said to do when two lions of different prides met. don't waver. he'll smell the fear.  
  
"oh," bobby says, and there's that disappointed look again. "i figured, since you turned down lunch, i could help you fix—" they both glance down at the crumbled remains of junhwe's project; bobby wrinkles his nose "—that. i'm shit at art but _dude_ , that's terrible."  
  
"... thanks," junhwe returns swiftly, more out of habit than anything else, "your face is kinda terrible too." for a moment, there's a stunned silence, and then bobby's laughing and it makes junhwe's stomach flip. he's pretty sure he's the colour of his classmate's paper mache of a ketchup bottle.  
  
"you're cute," bobby concludes. then he's advancing closer and closer and junhwe thinks he's either going to punch him or kiss him. both are equally terrifying, though one is more appealing than the other. but he ends up picking the gross tub of starch instead. "i'll help."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


ii.

their first kiss is more awkward because junhwe's so nervous, he ends up with a death grip on bobby's school jacket that has bobby laughing afterwards. he laughs too much, junhwe thinks, because all his movie-watching experience tells him that this moment should be explosive, not mildly humiliating. but then bobby's pushing himself up against the library table and tilting his head and kissing junhwe again and oh, okay, there's the explosive fireworks. there's the sudden rush of heat to his face. there's the loud roaring of— that last one turns out to be their librarian throwing them out of the library.  
  
and it doesn't stop there. bobby ends up lingering in between classes so he can walk junhwe up and down the hallway which doesn't even make  _sense_  and junhwe'd be dead before he can admit that he does enjoy it. then there's the embarrassing affair of bobby trying to give junhwe his sports jacket, with the text KIM printed boldly on the back.  
  
"you know half of korea shares the same surname as you, right?" junhwe asks, eyebrow raising skeptically as he holds bobby's jacket at an arm's length before dropping it back down on bobby's couch. "kim hanbin, kim jinhwan, kim donghyuk—"  
  
bobby whinges and whines but he seems to agree and gives up on that matter... until he walks into school the following week with a sports jacket that reads KOO #1 on the back.  
  
  
  
  
  
  


iii.

junhwe gets bobby's texts ( _detention, can't meet for ice-cream, sorry_ ) in the last fifteen minutes of history class and instantly groans aloud, earning him a dirty look from his teacher and the unwanted task of answering the last question in the list they'd been going through. he botches that up terribly, and is saved with donghyuk sliding his (completed) piece of homework over to his desk.  
  
"were you even listening?" donghyuk asks the moment the bell rings. junhwe focuses on shoving his books in his bag so he doesn't end up emotionally unloading on donghyuk as to what a ginormous dickbag his boyfriend is. would it honestly kill him to stay out of trouble for a single day?  
  
"no," junhwe answers bluntly instead, swinging his bag on, determined to go home without talking to anyone else, "that's what i have you for, right?"  
  
"... that's now how this works," donghyuk says, a little helplessly, though he looks a little bit proud. weirdo. "are you meeting bobby?"  
  
the sound of his name has junhwe rolling his eyes again, and in response, donghyuk raises his eyebrows. he knows that something's wrong, but tactfully doesn't ask. "he's dead to me," junhwe concludes, "i'm going home."  
  
for the most part, his mission to a) pretend he has no homework to complete, b) pretend he has no boyfriend to get mad at, and c) demolish all the ice-cream in their household is largely successful. even his mother notices the thunderclouds brewing over him enough to avoid nagging at him to clean his room. it's only later in the evening that his mother pops into his room and tells him there's someone at the door for him that it all goes to shit.  
  
it's bobby. of course it's bobby. but it's bobby with a black eye and a shit-eating grin, which, while the latter's nothing new, it's the horrendous split lip and bruised discolouration on his mouth that's a problem.  
  
“you never texted me back,” he says. junhwe can physically feel his face crumpling up as he debates slamming the door on bobby. what the hell.  
  
“was i supposed to?” junhwe asks, just to be contrary, and in a fit of goodwill moves to one side to let bobby in. bobby takes a step forward, then stops, as if deciding whether or not he wants to kiss junhwe with that disgusting split lip, and with junhwe’s mother potentially watching their every move from the landing.  
  
“i just thought you’d be… mad…” bobby trails off as junhwe shoots him a pointed look, because who the hell is he kidding? junhwe’s _livid_  and would give bobby another black eye if he didn’t end up looking so stupid. not that he doesn’t look stupid now. and he looks even stupider still when he grabs the hem of junhwe’s shirt just as junhwe’s about to return to his spot on the couch. “i’m sorry.”  
  
“you definitely look sorry,” junhwe mumbles, finding it hard to take pity. he can’t imagine that this situation would be anything but bobby’s fault. on impulse, he raises a hand to cup the side of bobby’s face, and bobby’s expression lights up until junhwe presses his thumb firmly to the edge of the bruise, causing him to wince loudly. “this is what you get for being an asshole.”  
  
“it wasn’t me,” bobby insists, but he doesn’t shy away from junhwe’s touch, and just covers junhwe’s hand with his own. “but it’s a long story.”  
  
“yeah well, i don’t have time for it anyway,” junhwe says nonchalantly, even though now that he’s closer, he can see that the black eye’s starting to swell pretty badly. “don’t you have to put ice on this or something?”  
  
“are you gonna take care of me?” bobby preens, stepping in closer and closer until he has an arm around junhwe’s waist.  
  
“don’t push your luck,” junhwe mumbles, rolling his eyes, though he lets bobby take his free hand to tug him to his kitchen, where his mother proceeds to fuss over bobby for the next hour.  
  
they’re lounging in junhwe’s bed later, and junhwe’s sure that bobby’s half asleep (it’s kinda hard to tell with the black eye whether or not his eyes are closed) when he gets a text from donghyuk that reads ‘i heard bobby got punched for you’.  
  
  
  
  
  
  


iv.

junhwe thinks that this must be some sort of karmic payback for getting angry at bobby for getting punched because now _he’s_  the one sporting the throbbing black eye and the split knuckles and he’s pretty sure one of his cheekbones’d just caved in.

  
“don’t be dramatic,” donghyuk tells him, but he looks worried as he furiously texts bobby to come get him. “you’ll live. and anyway, you threw the first punch. straight at his _mouth_.”  
  
“shit was coming out of it that i didn’t like,” junhwe grunts, trying not to move his face too much because it fucking hurts. and the guy had only landed three punches at most. everything else hurt, too, but nothing quite as much as the pulsing feeling his eyeball had. “i had to fix it.”  
  
“by _punching_  him? your mom’s gonna kill you.”  
  
“might as well end my misery,” junhwe says gravely, trying not to peel the skin off of his split knuckles. he feels antsy, angry still, with no where for all that rage to go, and it’s not like he can punch donghyuk when his fist feels like pounded meat.  
  
bobby comes get him soon enough, and it’s a mark of how long they’ve been dating that he doesn’t comment on junhwe’s face, just exchanges a quiet word with donghyuk before picking up junhwe’s bag and extending his hand. junhwe speeds ahead first, because he doesn’t need help walking, thank you. and it doesn’t help that bobby’s throwing him blatantly worried looks, his mouth opening and closing like a dying goldfish.  
  
they end up at a bench outside a convenience store, with both their bags piled up at junhwe’s feet as bobby goes in to buy a makeshift first aid kit. donghyuk’s right, junhwe’s mom _is_ going to kill him for getting blood on his shirt. by the time bobby comes back out with a bagful of god-knows-what, junhwe’s even more sullen and angry and barely reacts when bobby hands him an ice pack, just puts it against his cheek and winces at the cold.  
  
“so,” bobby starts, ripping open his pack of antiseptic wipes and taking junhwe’s hand in his, “i didn’t know you could throw a punch.”  
  
“me neither,” junhwe grouses, trying not to flinch when bobby sets to work. it’s the gentlest junhwe’s ever seen him, with his eyebrows furrowed and his touches light and gentle and just a little bit hesitant.  
  
“donghyuk said—“  
  
“donghyuk’s full of shit and i’d punch him too,” junhwe declares.  
  
“don’t,” bobby tells him. “this hurts, right?” he’s using that cajoling tone he does whenever junhwe’s mad at him, irrationally or not, and it drives junhwe up the wall. “next time, let me do it for you.”  
  
“what, you wanna be my hitman?” junhwe asks. “i can deal with my own shit.”  
  
“but he was talking about me, wasn’t he?” bobby asks, and unless junhwe’s black eye’s gonna turn him blind, he swears bobby’s flushing in the yellow lighting of the convenience store. “so it’s technically my shit. ‘sides—“ he pulls the hand junhwe has to his face away, squinting at the bruise “—it hurts me to see you hurt.” and then he’s kissing junhwe’s cheek, a gentle press of his lips to tender skin, his mouth hot against the cold that junhwe’d just been getting used to.  
  
“fuck off,” junhwe grumbles, looking away so he doesn’t end up saying something he might regret.  
  
  
  
  
  
  


v.

their First Official Date ends up becoming a trip to the lotte world that bobby has surprisingly meticulously planned, down to their route and the type of food they were going to eat. junhwe doesn't know if he's more impressed or turned or or some combination of the two, especially considering the fact that all he'd been eating for the past month were cucumber sandwiches (made in his own kitchen) and working his ass off so much that junhwe barely had time to see him.  
  
so he doesn't quite know how to tell bobby, once they're standing in the queue for the ferris wheel, that he's terrified of heights. he must've turned green or pale or some other colour that demonstrates that he's about to puke his guts out because bobby takes his hand and squeezes it comfortingly and asks, "are you nervous?"  
  
"no," junhwe immediately replies because this is their first date, and he wasn't going to ruin it by throwing up all the popcorn he'd ingested. "the queue's too fucking long."  
  
bobby still looks unsure, but he tells junhwe to wait and hesitantly pecks him on the cheek as he sprints off to the head of the queue and has a fierce conversation with the middle-aged lady manning the doors. eventually, he waves junhwe on over, wearing a grin on his face that junhwe's pretty sure must hurt, somehow.  
  
"we're through?" junhwe asks, when the lady smiles benignly at them and opens the door. if junhwe wasn't so nervous, he'd notice her pocketing a 30,000won bill. but he's literally about to shit himself, so he walks through in a nervous daze, staring up at the imposing infrastructure of metal and death.  
  
it helps a little that bobby looks like he wants to shit himself too, but not nearly enough when the wheel starts turning and their carriage rises from the ground, going further and further upwards until the lady manning the booth is just a little dot in the distance. junhwe's sweating so much he can feel his button-up getting wet, but then he's distracted when bobby takes both of his hands.  
  
"junhwe, i—" he starts, but honestly, all junhwe hears is a distant buzzing sound. why is it so _hard to breathe_? "i think that we should—"  
  
"i'm going to throw up," junhwe announces loudly, so loudly that his voice echoes in the small space. "fuck." bobby looks stunned, but not as stunned as when junhwe sits onto the ground and starts saying, "we're going to fucking die."  
  
"why didn't you tell me you didn't want to come up here?" bobby asks, looking genuinely flummoxed as he settles down beside junhwe. this is getting ridiculous, junhwe thinks faintly, but then again, he can see the carnival ground through the glass floor and he quickly looks up, fixing his eyes on bobby's face.  
  
"i don't fucking know," junhwe says, squeezing bobby's hands even tighter than he should be. "your stupidity must be infecting me."  
  
"i have just the thing to fix your problem," bobby says smugly, and for a second, junhwe forgets his paralysing fear of heights enough to raise his eyebrow questioningly. in lieu of a reply, bobby leans forward and kisses junhwe which, besides the fact that this is his first time and junhwe feels like he's going to fucking explode, bobby's effectively blocking his view from everything else.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


vi.

junhwe’s pretty sure that he can make the climb up the side of bobby’s house without dying. it’s not even that far up, right? only two floors. and there’s a ladder laying in his backyard and everything. _and_  more importantly, junhwe has things to say that can’t wait until the morning.  
  
he also might be a little inebriated, if the zig-zag path he’s taken to the ladder, and also the full fifteen minutes he takes to prop it up against the side of bobby’s house. had he been a little more sober, he’d marvel at the fact that no one had tried to call the cops on him yet. then again, it is three in the morning. it’s only when he’s halfway up the ladder (and surprisingly not dead yet) when bobby’s window jerks open and a heap of hair pokes out curiously.  
  
“what the hell,” bobby’s voice comes and junhwe nearly waves, but then remembers that he has to keep his both hands firmly on the sides of the ladder so he doesn’t fall and break his neck.  
  
“wait,” junhwe grunts out.  
  
“i’m fucking dreaming, aren’t i?” bobby asks aloud as he tries to smooth his hair down. he’s blinking like he’s trying to process everything, like he can’t quite believe what’s happening. honestly, he undermines junhwe so much. “i’m gonna wake up and we’re still gonna be fighting, aren’t we?”  
  
“shut the hell up and let me concentrate,” junhwe barks. which isn’t quite what he’d meant to say—he’d come all the way here to make nice with bobby, but it’s a little hard too when the metal rungs are so slippery and junhwe’s hand-eye coordination had disappeared with his last drink. if he dies, he’s not sure if he should blame song minho or bobby more.  
  
eventually he makes it up in one piece, and bobby catches him with firm arms around his waist and shoulders and… it feels nice, it feels like junhwe could fall asleep right here—  
  
“hey, stay with me. are you drunk? holy shit,” bobby breathes, bodily pulling junhwe to his bed to seat him down.  
  
“minho had a lot of colourful drinks,” junhwe replies, by way of explanation. he’s pretty sure he’s clinging to bobby by this point, but he finds he has very little dignity left to care. “some of them were really gross.”  
  
“you went drinking… with minho?” bobby asks, sounding skeptical. or disappointed. or something. junhwe can’t tell—it’s hard to pin down things when everything else is this fluid.  
  
“yeah he said i looked emo,” junhwe replies, swatting a hand in the air and accidentally slap-landing his hand on bobby’s face. at least it’s still, now. “do i look emo?”  
  
“you look wasted,” bobby tells him instead, hands tugging at junhwe’s jacket, “and like you’ll regret this tomorrow morning.”  
  
“no,” junhwe complains, batting at bobby’s hands. “not this. no sex. this isn’t what i— i have something to tell you.”  
  
“i’m just trying to remove your dirty jacket,” bobby says cajolingly. “what the hell were you up to?”  
  
“i might’ve—“ junhwe swallows, because bobby’s face is suddenly all too close to his, complete with his ridiculous bed hair and his sleepy eyes and junhwe feels like he’s right at the top of that ladder again “—walked here.”  
  
“and you call _me_  stupid.”  
  
“shut up, i have important things to say. that came out wrong. i want to… apologise?” junhwe tries again, but he blinks and all he can see is bobby’s face swimming in and out of clarity, and bobby’s warm hands on his shoes and on his jacket and through his hair. “will you _stop that_? it’s bad— distracting.”  
  
“why don’t you try talking after some sleep?” bobby suggests, but even then his voice is very far away.  
  
“aren’t you mad?” junhwe asks, his voice sounding small even to himself. the bed dips and junhwe’s shifting closer and closer to the source of warmth until bobby’s pressed up close enough for junhwe to hear, all too clearly, his, “can’t stay mad at you.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  


vii.

he wakes up to an empty bed and a head that’s trying to destroy him from the inside out but when he rolls over, he takes a nosedive into the scent of bobby’s detergent and his stomach flips, not quite in a completely nauseous way. everything comes rushing back to him all at once and he squeezes his eyes shut, feeling stupid.  
  
“you should be glad it’s saturday,” bobby’s voice comes from somewhere behind him, and despite himself, junhwe musters the energy to flip off in the general direction of bobby’s bedroom. “you’re gonna regret doing that when you find out i have water and pancakes.”  
  
“liar,” junhwe says, but that’s all he has energy to do. and bobby notices, because the next thing he knows is that the bed’s shifting and he opens his eyes to come face to face with a shirtless bobby, not a rare sight, but one that still makes junhwe flush.  
  
“last night, you said—“  
  
“i was drunk and can’t be held liable for whatever i said,” junhwe declares loudly, then winces at the sound of his own voice.  
  
“that doesn’t sound like an apology to me,” bobby points out, his grin a mile wide as he scoots carefully closer to junhwe. any closer and junhwe’s eyes are going to cross. but bobby’s hand in his hair feels nice, though bobby’s face is even nicer.  
  
“if you have pancakes and water i might even try to put you down gently,” junhwe tells him, his voice barely above a whisper, because the moment feels fragile, somehow, with the morning light haloing bobby’s head like some kind of too-smug heavenly being. junhwe sucks in a breath.  
  
“… i can try,” bobby eventually says, looking genuinely concerned. “pancakes. those are just… flour? eggs?”  
  
“god, i don’t want to die,” junhwe says, closing his eyes as he turns his cheek to bobby’s touch. although dying now didn’t seem like a bad idea. wasn’t that one of those horribly depressing songs that donghyuk enjoyed playing? junhwe presses his lips together, than all at once, he says, “i’m sorry i get pissed at stuff you can’t control sometimes and that i’m shit at telling you things. but really, it’s your fault too.”  
  
“my fault?” bobby echoes incredulously, evidently thumping his chest because junhwe can distinguish a loud slapping sound. “you literally just said that it’s your fault.”  
  
“stick your ground, asshole,” junhwe clarifies. when he opens his eyes again, bobby’s grin’d dimmed down to something more unsure, so junhwe makes it up by confidently declaring, “don’t keep giving in to me all the damn time. it makes me look like the bad guy. people think i’m abusing you.”  
  
“but i don’t want to,” bobby says, his voice bordering on a whine. “i like giving in to you. or else it feels like… i don’t know. it feels like you might—“ bobby ends up shrugging. the thing is, junhwe gets it. it’s probably the same feeling he gets when he watches bobby talk to a billion other people after he finishes a game or when they hang out at a party or when they walk through a singular corridor at school. jealousy’s probably stretching it a little. it’s a little more like walking on eggshells. why bobby’s feeling that way is well beyond junhwe.  
  
“i like you. a lot,” junhwe says, a little too loud. it’s a non-sequitor that’s not quite a non-sequitor. “tell me you at least remember that.”  
  
bobby looks surprised, and he supposes, in the grand scheme of things, that’s because it’s the first time he’s ever said it out loud. the words come surprisingly easily, though that’s/ because junhwe’s been thinking it for a long time coming.  
  
“i know,” bobby says. he sounds a little too gleeful—looks a little bit _too_  happy—for someone who’s supposedly in possession of that knowledge. “i remember.”  
  
“okay, i’m just… checking. promise me you’ll remember,” junhwe says, a little lamely, because the look on bobby’s face makes his chest constrict and renders him more or less speechless. but then bobby’s sticking out his pinky and junhwe finds himself rolling his eyes even as he hooks their fingers together.  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
